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I’m Bob Larson. It’s no secret, and certainly no surprise, that livestock producers in northeast Washington are fed up with the reintroduction of wolves that have left them with a decade of frustration trying to protect their cattle and their livelihoods.

At the first-ever ‘Cowboy Summit’ held recently in

Ellensburg, ranching groups talked about finding answers … one of which, according to the Washington Farm Bureau’s Tom Davis, is finding a representative from northeast ranching community to be part of Fish and Wildlife’s ‘Wolf Advisory Group’ …

DAVIS … “There are a lot of ranchers up there and I would put it on the department, they need to work with the ranchers up there and find someone who would be willing to participate. Understand that’s a real challenge because those people up there are very frustrated. You know, having to live with wolves now for a decade and it’s only getting worse as that wolf population continues to increase. There are, I think there’s 17 packs up there in the northeast right now out of the 22 in the state.”

I ask Davis if delisting the wolves in that area would be a partial solution …

DAVIS … “That’s one of them. As you know, the state is split in two. You know, the eastern one-third of the state is delisted federally and then the remaining two-thirds westward is still listed under the ESA, the Endangered Species Act, and there is growing support for, in the state here, doing a regional delisting as well.”

Davis says other proposed solutions would be allowing more local controls and better sharing of wolf collar locations by the Department of Fish and Wildlife.